Attacks on the education sector are surging: How can cyber-defenders respond?

The report outlines a surge in cyberattacks against the education sector, driven by factors like porous networks, BYOD practices, legacy tech, large user bases, and valuable PII and research data. It highlights ransomware as the top threat, frequent phishing and social engineering (including QR-code lures), and activity from nation-state–aligned actors such as APT35, which employ EDR evasion and modular payloads. The piece emphasizes sector-wide risk trends across the UK, US, and EU and recommends baseline defenses—MFA, patching, backups, incident response planning, user training, BYOD controls, and MDR partnerships—to reduce exposure and impact.